May 2016

Customer Experience, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Engagement: What's the difference and what's driving the meteoric rise of customer focus in the boardroom ?

Customer Engagementcan be described as a customer’s direct interaction with a brand. Until recently it was dominated by a one-way monologue, “Mad Men” style, along the lines of: “Tell them about us, Tell them again and then Tell them some more”. That has now morphed into much more of an “omnilogue” across many platforms and channels. Customers form perceptions about companies from; up close and personal interactions in stores, messages on packaging, online self-service, support over the phone, and through social media, news coverage, corporate social responsibility initiatives, the CEO’s biography and umpteen touch points in between.

When engaging with customers, companies are directly and indirectly making promises and creating expectations. Democratising the narrative and giving up control over what is said means that companies more than ever need to live up to their brand promise rather than just talking about it.

By contrast, Customer Satisfaction is a temporal measure - assessing how a company’s products and services meet, surpass or fail customer expectations at a moment in time. Companies have many ways to assess whether they’re meeting customer needs: renewals or repurchase/increasing share of wallet/advocacy/lowering customer churn all indicate customers are happy with what you’re doing for them – in part.

Customer Satisfaction scores can help you find out where your customer interactions are on point, and where improvement is needed, by understanding the satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) key drivers. Inevitably getting things done is a battle of internal resources. A targeted approach to improving results will always work better than trying to improve everything. The key driver analysis allows you to prioritise what to work on and how to get the biggest “bang for buck”.
Be warned, Customer Satisfaction is not a measure of how much your customers like or are emotionally connected to your company. To put it simply: solving a customer’s problem is no guarantee that they are going to like you, it’s a good start but it’s not enough.

We like to think that Customer Experience is the intersection of Customer Engagement and Customer Satisfaction – it identifies the gap (or overlap) between Expectations and Delivery. It takes in a wide variety of channels, platforms and touch points – from pre-purchase (awareness, research, attraction, interaction) to purchase, and then on to post-purchase (use, cultivation and advocacy). It’s the sum of all experiences a customer has with a brand, product or company and is laden with emotional nuance.
And so the boardroom...Behavioural economists are the new horse whisperers…they are helping Executives to recognize that not all purchasing decisions are rational – many are rooted in emotional, social and psychological responses. Thus, we see the rise of Customer Experience research.

Turn your mind to the little spot at the base of your neck, or at the top of your diaphragm, that involuntarily reacts to moments that matter. When you feel good about a moment you’ll have a flutter. The hairs on your neck will rise. You’ll grin. When you’re disappointed, angry or sad your breath might quicken, your throat might ache, you turn white hot, your skin flushes red. These emotional responses are what differentiate Customer Experiencefrom Customer Satisfaction. It’s where the engagement with the brand and the business performance collide, and each helps to reinforce the other. To discuss the size of your Customer Experience Gap or Overlap – contact us

CSBA Customer Satisfaction SURVEY

The 2016 CSBA Customer Satisfaction survey was conducted in March. Thank you to all our customers for taking the time to provide feedback . We do like to practice what we preach. Here is a snapshot of our results... CLICK HERE

CSBA STAFF PROFILE: WARREN REID

Warren has over 20 years’ experience in both qualitative and quantitative research, and has held senior management roles with leading organisations in both Australia and the UK. He is a resourceful, enthusiastic, and creative marketing professional, and is passionate about market research and the importance of good customer service to drive loyalty and advocacy. It should also be noted that Warren is highly experienced in customer service and satisfaction improvement programs, and has worked on large scale Mystery Shopping and Quality Audits programs from concept to implementation... EMAIL WARREN

CSBA Index
Quarter 3, 2015-16

TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE PERFORMERS

1.

Town of Mosman Park

2.

Strathbogie Shire Council

3.

North East Water

4.

Surf Coast Shire Council

5.

University of Queensland
Wannon Water

7.

City of Subiaco
GWM Water

9.

City of Boroondara

10.

College of Law

TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE PERFORMERS BY INDUSTRY

1.

Automotive

Holden

2.

Banks - General

Commonwealth Bank

3.

Banks - Loans

HSBC Home Loans

4.

Energy

Alinta

5.

Housing Services

QLD Housing

6.

Insurance

Budget Direct

7.

Local Government

Town of Mosman Park

8.

Superannuation

MLC Super

9.

TAFE

TAFE Riverina Institute

10.

Telecommunications

TPG Mobile

11.

Tenancy Authority

Residential Tenancy Authority Qld

12.

University

University of Queensland

13.

Water

North East Water

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